Positioning for tech companies. Author of the best-selling books Obviously Awesome and Sales Pitch.

April Dunford is the world's foremost authority on product positioning for B2B technology companies. As a consultant, April helps companies make complex products easy to understand and love. After a 25-year career as a VP of Marketing at various fast-growing technology firms, she has consulted with 300 technology companies, including Google, Epic Games, Postman, and others. April is the acclaimed author of the best-selling book, "Obviously Awesome," which delves into the art of positioning, and the newly released, "Sales Pitch," which unveils the secrets to crafting a winning sales narrative in the market.

Today, an exec says to me, "Must be easy to have a newsletter that's all guest posts." I hope Lenny Rachitsky doesn't mind, but I told him this story:

Early last December, Lenny reached out to me about something, and I pitched him on an idea for a guest post. We went back and forth on ideas and settled on something. 

I spent a week over the holiday break writing a big, messy 8,000-word essay on positioning stuff and lobbed it back at him.

Lenny does a first deep pass on it, and we go back and forth for a week or so. 

Next, he loops in one of his editors, who did a structural edit (publishers do this with books - this edit makes sure the structure works and it flows for readers). Her feedback was great, and I spent another couple of weeks rewriting it to incorporate it. The editor, Lenny, and I then go back and forth for about a month or so - adding and removing sections, messing with titles, and rewriting the confusing bits (aside - there are many confusing bits 😂).

Lenny thought a graphic might help, so a graphics person was pulled in, and we messed around with that for a couple of weeks. 

We are now in late February and ready for a proper copy edit. A copy editor was added to our group, and we had a few iterations on the wording before we reached a final version. 

We spent another week or so messing around with titles and subtitles, and then it's ready to go. 

Three months start to finish - that's how you make it look "easy."

Lenny's got a great podcast out today talking about how he grew the newsletter to 1.2 million subscribers - it's worth a listen. 

The finished product here - https://lnkd.in/gabnxcRK
Lenny's podcast on how he grew the newsletter here - https://lnkd.in/gRSiKW_k

April Dunford

I am an experienced startup executive with a deep interest in how companies bring new offerings to market and get them into the hands of customers that are willing to pay for them. I have deep expertise in Market Positioning and have launched 16 products into market. I have experience creating new markets, expanding markets and positioning new products in existing established markets. 

I've held executive roles in a series of successful startups as CEO, COO, and VP Marketing. I've also held executive roles at global companies such as IBM where I launched and grew a new product division. 

I've done fundraising for several startups, and have worked through acquisitions both on the buy and the sell-side. I have acquired a SaaS business and have been an angel investor in several startups. 

I am the author of two books. My best-selling book on positioning "Obviously Awesome - How to Stand out in Noisy Crowded Markets," and the recently released "Sales Pitch - How to Build a Story to Stand Out and Win."

ANNOUNCEMENT - The new edition of Obviously Awesome is officially available! Woop Dee Doodley Doo!!

New in the updated and expanded edition:
⭐ An expanded pre-work section that includes key decisions a team should make before beginning a positioning exercise. 
⭐ A new section covering positioning for multi-product companies
⭐ Expanded content for several of the steps in the positioning process - most notably the Differentiated Value step.
⭐ There is an expanded section at the end covering what happens after a positioning exercise, including testing and translating the positioning for the sales team. 
⭐ I have restructured the steps. We now have five components and five steps, instead of five components and 10 steps. You're welcome, numbers people. 
⭐ For the first time, there is a hardcover edition (for folks that and just too enthusiastic for paperbacks!)

IMPORTANT things to note!
👀 There are copies of the old book floating around. To ensure you have the new book, look for the yellow sticker on the cover that says "UPDATED AND EXPANDED."
🎙️ If you order the new AUDIOBOOK from Audible, it might give you an error that says you have already purchased this book. Ignore it and download anyway. If you see the yellow sticker on the cover, you have the new one.
🗺️ On Amazon, the new book is NOT available in all formats in every country. For example, in India, you can buy the new book in ebook and audiobook formats, but not the hardcover (well, you can, but it will cost a fortune because it's coming from the USA) or the paperback. I have a local publisher there, and it will take a while for my new book to go through their process.   
🏬 The book is available from ANY book seller - ask for it, and they can order it for you. 
💢 If you just ordered the old paperback book and you're all like, "Aw nuts, April, I just ordered the old one waaaahhhhh!" Return it to Amazon and re-order the new one - problem solved! 

Special shout-out to my newsletter reader Steph T, who called their personal contacts at Amazon and got my book listing fixed after WEEKS of support shenanigans. Excellent humans exist in the world!!!

I'm guesting on Lenny's newsletter today! I'm diving into a set of tricky positioning roadblocks and how to get around them. 

In my mind, there is a set of obvious positioning roadblocks (the team doesn't agree on the positioning, the sales team won't adopt it, the positioning is overly broad), then there are the more challenging positioning roadblocks:

⛔ Disagreement about what to position AGAINST - a specific misalignment across the team around what a prospect compares us to in a deal, becoming overly focused on hypothetical competitors, and becoming distracted by noisy competitors that do not show up on short lists.

⛔ PESSIMISTIC product thinking - attempting to differentiate against an overly long list of theoretical competitors, defining best-fit customers too broadly, dismissing sales team insight about why customers buy, and becoming overly focused on fixing problems rather than fortifying differentiation.

⛔ The DIFFERENTIATED VALUE is POORLY DEFINED - overly focused on features prospects don't understand, overly vague or undifferentiated value propositions, too many themes, confusing value with objection handling

⛔ The company isn't in agreement on WHAT they are positioning - are we positioning a product, the company, or a set of products? Do we sell a lead product and then position the others as cross-sell or up-sell opportunities?

Do any of those sound familiar? Get the solutions over on Lenny's newsletter here - https://lnkd.in/gabnxcRK

This is a long, deep article - I hope you enjoy it.

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